1988 Monte Carlo SS Front Passanger Fender Gapping

[DanC]

Can anyone tell me if this is fixable?

Car was jacked up and fender pushed up .5 inches and slightly misaligned.

Talk about aggravating!!!

Not frame damage, panel still in good shape and no scratches.

Body shop without seeing it says couple of hours of bolt loosening, shim adjustments etc...

attached is a pic of door and fender

thanks in advance




thanks in advance

 

[TURNA]

Open the hood and door loosen up the bolts and start adjusting

 

[565bbchevy]

It should be able to be adjusted with shims etc. unless the bottom of the fender was actually forced up and bent to that position then you might have to remove the fender and bend it back.

 

[jlcustomz]

Worst can be fixed by typical shimming, BUT these vehicles were never near perfect to begin with. Larger door to fender gap at top is pretty typical & sometimes shimming under core support can help, but having near perfect gaps a true bodyman can approve of can take drastic measures like welding metal to door & fender edges.

EDIT:: fender to door alignment in & out from top to bottom is never perfect either. If not painting, you align for best it can look as is. If painting, you align for where you can best correct it.

 

[pontiacgp]

by that picture it looks like the fender is bent. The fender seems to be hitting on the hood and and is slightly lower than the hood at the tip. Also the body creases along the fender and door almost look to be inline

 

[Wagonman100]

Was that just from jacking under the frame, or did the car slip and the jack push up on the fender? If the fender got bent, it will have to be repaired. I’ve seen plenty of movement in my El Camino from jacking it up, but I have never had a fender change adjustment. You can loosen the bolts at the hinge pillar and at the bottom of the fender and see if you can move it enough to bring it back into alignment. It shouldn’t need to be reshimmed since it is the fender that was on the car. The same amount of shims would be needed in the same places unless something about the panel or the car changed. As stated, these cars did not have perfectly aligned panels from the factory, so I hope you know what it looked like before the change and don’t drive yourself nuts trying to make it better than can be expected.

 

[TURNA]

My guess is he placed the jack in the wrong spot and caught that bottom fender bolt .

 

[roger1]

Just an FYI here.
On my '83 El Camino, this is the fender to door gap at the top the way it came from the factory. The other side was only a little better.

I had to weld onto the edges of the panels to correct that and did that earlier this year.

 

[michmalibuman]

Just an FYI here.
On my '83 El Camino, this is the fender to door gap at the top the way it came from the factory. The other side was only a little better.

I had to weld onto the edges of the panels to correct that and did that earlier this year.

I had to do the same thing to my Malibu.

 

[BOXCARS]

Just an FYI here.
On my '83 El Camino, this is the fender to door gap at the top the way it came from the factory. The other side was only a little better.

Yeah, tell me about it .... (link works)